Princess Zara

by Ross Beeckman

A solitary policeman passed into our view and out of it again, a britzska rushed past an adjacent corner with the horse at galloping speed; a child played with its father for a moment, within our range of vision, and then disappeared; a fur clad pedestrian ran up the steps of a nearby residence, and passed inside of it; all these trivial incidents of observation, came and went, while we stood there, leaving behind them no impression save one of peace, quiet and security. Yet they impressed themselves upon my memory indelibly, and I can see before me even now, the vision of that afternoon in St. Petersburg, with the clinging right hand of my beloved one resting upon my shoulder, with my left arm about her warm and pulsing body, with love, in all its transcendent qualities, dominating all things real and unreal, and filling my heart, and soul, and my intelligence, with a perfection of blissful content which words cannot describe, and which may never be understood save by him who has experienced it.

What terror had Zara seen through that window, that had startled her so, just before we discovered and confessed our mutual love? Whatever it may have been, no evidence of it remained, to suggest disquiet in my own present sense of security. There was nothing there to menace me, and even though Zara's brother Ivan, and others of his kind, fanatics all, in their nihilistic tendencies, wild beasts in their blood lusts, fiends in their methods, as they were—whatever they might threaten, seemed small indeed to me, in that moment of ecstasy. For it was a moment of ecstasy; the word "moment" being measured by the rule of space, limitless and unconfined.

Zara did not know who and what I was, save only that I was a man, and her lover. Beyond that, her imagination had not travelled, and her desires had not sought.

She did not understand that I was at the head of a great fraternity, organized and established by myself, and that I had under my control, if not obedient to my direct command, several hundred individuals within the limit of that city, who would serve me instantly, and who would fight to the death for me if there were need.

It was to be regretted that I had gone to the home of the Princess Zara to keep my appointment that day, with so little thought of the dangers I might have to encounter before I should leave it again. It would have been so easy to arrange for adequate protection, and to have had at that very moment, when I was gazing through the lace curtained window, assistance ready at hand in the shape of men prepared to answer to any signal I might have agreed upon. A word dropped to O'Malley at his café, a sign made to big Tom Coyle, a note in cipher to Canfield, an indication to anyone of my trusted lieutenants, would have placed about me at that very moment, an environment of protection adequate to cope with any difficulty that might arise.

But I had not foreseen the present circumstance sufficiently to be prepared for it in that manner.

Zara and I were practically alone in that great house, save for the servants it contained; and they were not to be counted upon in any case, no matter what form individual effort against us might take.

I was conscious, too, while we stood there so silently together, of the new responsibility I had taken upon myself during the love scene that had just passed; and I was suddenly aware of the danger which threatened my beloved, through me.

I did not realize it until that instant. I had thought, selfishly enough, only of what she had said about my own peril. I had remembered only that I was the object of a planned assassination, because some one whom I had not discovered at the time, had overheard the interview in the garden to which I had been a witness the preceding night, and had also listened to the one that followed it, between Zara and me.

The thrill of alarm that convulsed me, when the full realization of this aspect of the affair came home to me, was startling and paralyzing. Whatever the friends of nihilism might do to me now, would have its crushing effect upon her, also. Nothing could touch me, that would not injure her. We had become one, indeed, in the sense of being so absorbed in each other, so blended in soul and in thought, that whatever affected one, must act with redoubled power upon the other.